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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > November > 11 > Entry
Martin Gottlieb: Honoree has the story about Clinton and ‘Dayton’
In his visit last weekend for events surrounding the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, author Taylor Branch was more interested in talking about his latest book than about the work that won him the Lifetime Achievement Award last year.
He had won for his trilogy on Martin Luther King Jr. Now Branch is in the news for a book about Bill Clinton.
It’s natural for a writer to want to talk about his latest work. He has moved on emotionally, and, after all, there’s not much point in rehashing what he said last year. And, after all, the new one is the one being marketed right now.
But beyond that, Branch had excellent justification for raising the Clinton book in Dayton: Bosnia.
The peace prize itself grows out of Dayton’s hosting of the 1995 talks that brought peace to Bosnia. (Yes, the talks were actually at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base; but come on.) And Branch’s new book has a lot on Bosnia.
He couldn’t talk about the book last year, because it was still a secret.
What a concept for a book. Clinton, who knew Branch from a political adventure 20 years earlier, suggested that Branch might be a sort of official historian in the Clinton White House. Branch did not want that role, but they worked out a deal whereby Branch would interview Clinton regularly, in the White House, toward the goal of producing a history of his presidency.
The resulting book, “The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President,” gets to Bosnia on page 9 out of 663 and returns to it often.
Branch told Dayton audiences that Clinton was frustrated that some European leaders where unwilling to help a defenseless, besieged Sarajevo arm itself against well-armed enemies. These leaders, said Clinton, saw something inherently untenable in the very existence of a Muslim community (Sarajevo) in Europe.
In his speeches here, Branch didn’t name the names of the leaders Clinton had in mind. But in a conversation, he said Clinton did name names: Francois Mitterrand of France and John Major of Great Britain.
(Actually, Branch spoke more of “the British” than Major by name, and the book doesn’t actually use Major’s name in this context.)
In truth, a lot of people in Europe and this country thought it a bad idea for NATO or anybody else to risk much for the cause of peace in the Balkans, because the cause was hopeless. The idea was that people in the Balkans were always at each other’s throats over religious and ethnic differences.
It was an exaggeration. Political violence does recur in the Balkans, but it is not the norm. As Branch said in conversation here, if it were, there wouldn’t have been all those mosques and other accumulated treasures to destroy in the wars of the 1990s. For those who remember the atmosphere in Dayton during the talks — or have heard about it — the Branch book fills in a blank: What was Clinton doing?
One thing he was doing was talking to Branch.
It was a particularly tumultuous period in Washington. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the new Republican majorities in Congress were trying to shut down most of the government in a battle over spending.
Branch was interviewing Clinton one night toward the end of the talks when Secretary of State Warren Christopher called to report that things were going badly in Dayton.
The specific problem at that stage was Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic. His territory was being cut up, and he was having a tough time with it, down to balking over what seemed to others like details.
Branch heard Clinton give Christopher permission to give up. This came after a lot of guidance about how to get Izetbegovic on board — by telling him he could end up bearing the blame for the failure of talks, and telling him a now-or-never point had been reached.
But eventually Clinton said, “Well, Chris, go ahead and do it. Walk away. I trust you. I’ll back you up. Eventually, you’ve got to shut it down if they won’t take the peace.”
Richard Holbrooke, the lead American negotiator, often talks about how the talks almost broke down. There’s a story about how Holbrooke had his bags packed and displayed so that the other negotiators would understand he was serious about shutting things down if they didn’t come to terms. It’s an after-dinner story that gets a lot of laughs, having to do with the fact that reporters were watching the luggage as a clue about what was going on.
But apparently Clinton was serious.
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